This summer, 10 students and two faculty members are traveling to China to enhance their Chinese language skills while experiencing the country’s vast and diverse cultural landscape. Please enjoy this next blog post below from Isaac ’27 as he shares how getting lost, discovering traditional Chinese tea practices, and navigating daily budgets all contributed to another day of learning and cultural exchange in China.
你好！ Today was quite exciting. Brandon and I, determined to not get lost again, made our daily commute to the school, and found out that we still had little sense of direction. We managed to make it back to school early and took the time to stroll around and look for a certain thing that a friend very much needed. Our class found that we had two new students, a great addition to the class. After class, they took us to tea time which was really interesting. We learned about different types of tea, and some of us even learned how to prepare it. It was a very traditional practice, unlike tea brewing in the USA where you just make the tea. Everything was very specific and there was a certain order to it. I feel that this reflects Chinese values as it is very structured and specific for each scenario, just like aspects of Chinese life such as family dinners. After returning, we all had to figure out dinner, and I realized I had no money left on the daily trip spending card, so Cam thankfully bought some food for us. Having only a 100 yuan on our cards per day puts a different perspective on how we buy things, even though it only amounted to around less than 14 dollars. My host family welcomed me back and we talked about our plans for tomorrow, and they gave me a short overview of Qingpu, our destination for the next day which helped me prepare. Every day in China I’ve learned something new, and I hope to continue that.
